Letter to
Monsieur Jacques Chirac
President de la Republique Francaise

3 July 1995

Mister President,

The International Peace Research Association wishes to express its strong displeasure
at your decision to resume testing at Mururoa and Fangatuafa Atolls in French
Polynesia. Our reasons for this are as follows:

(1) It represents a further erosion of the nuclear testing oratorium and makes
it difficult for the nuclear weapon states to exert moral pressure on China
in relation of its testing programme.

(2) It is stimulating a desire within the United States nuclear weapons establishment
to resume a testing programme (either in Nevada or within one of the nuclear
weapons laboratories).

(3) It complicates the negotiating climate for a comprehensive test ban treaty
and may have a very negative dynamic on those negotiations within the Conference
on Disarmament.

(4) It raises serious questions about the Chapter VI commitments made by the
nuclear weapon states at the April 1995 Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
and will undoubtedly generate new anxiety among non nuclear weapon states about
the short and long term nuclear intentions of the nuclear powers.

(5) The decision is contrary to majority public opinion and the stated preferences
of all South Pacific States and undermines the more positive position adopted
by France over the past four years.

(6) It sends exactly the wrong signal to those countries contemplating crossing
the nuclear threshold. For these and more basic humanitarian and environmental
reasons we ask you to reconsider your decision and rejoin the nuclear testing
moratorium.